Shadow Warrior 2 Review

Introduction:

A bit late on this one, but here at last is a review for Shadow Warrior 2. I feel I should say I have played and enjoyed the 2013 game, so I have been looking forward to this one. There are a number of important distinctions between the two games, such as the prior one being quite linear while this sequel has a more open design with side missions and lots of loot drops to pick up. One thing still present is the ability to slice-and-dice almost anything you come across the lacks a green-colored name. You can also shoot and explode enemies, but I'm more of a melee/sword-guy myself.

Shadow Warrior 2 is set five years after the previous title, and because of what Lo Wang did then, the shadow realm and human world have partially collided. This has resulted in 'crude' leaking into the world where it is corrupting what it encounters. Still, Lo Wang has a job working with Yakuza clans when they want to hire his sword, so it could be worse for him. Naturally then, it does get worse as one mission results in him, once again, playing host to another's soul and having to test his skills to save the world. On the plus side, now he has a constant audience for his dick jokes and other inappropriate comments.

While the game does not have an ESRB rating currently, I am pretty sure it would have an M rating, between its gore, language, sexual themes, and drug references. That also means some of the media contained in this review will not be appropriate for all audiences. Something else I want to mention about this media is that video capture was a little wonky. I was able to hook in and get usable videos, but some of the videos have a stutter in them and even screen tearing that was not present while playing. There was some stutter, which I will talk about more later, but never any tearing. I am unsure why the recordings show this, and while some videos I threw out because of this, others I wanted to keep for the fun of the gameplay they do capture.